


I made him a mix-CD

by orphan_account



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 02:24:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A right angsty little first-person story picking up on the 'mix-CD' theme of In the Flesh, and imagining what actually happened 8 years ago, when Kieren got banned from the Macy's house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I made him a mix-CD

I made him a mix-CD.  
I was 14, and it was the only thing I was any good at. 

I’d made one for Jem, just the term before. Ever since she’d started secondary school she’d been walking on her tip toes. She wouldn’t tell anyone why, and everyone thought she was sick somehow, because she acted so normal and it was like her feet had a life of their own. But I could see that she was so shut up in herself, looking out from behind her mousy-brown fringe. It was like she had to keep stepping quietly, because if she didn’t, someone might notice that she wasn’t what she seemed. So I made her a mix-CD. I put on all this heavy metal, because I knew, in the same way that a doctor knows that you need antibiotics, that she needed something so loud that she could let herself take a proper step out, when no-one would notice. 

I liked the idea that I could be like a doctor, diagnosing people in this small way. Even though I couldn’t do anything normal, normal like normal guys do - normal like normal people do, I could make mix-CDs that seemed to fix things, at least for a bit. 

I made Rick a mix-CD the night after what had happened at his place. We didn’t really talk at school - his mates took the piss out of me, and he didn’t stop them - I mean - I didn’t expect him to, really. But it was different that summer, when we were round at each other’s places. The night before I was barred from his house, we were both in a really daft mood. He’d been given this big pair of floppy boxer shorts from his nan, and he decided it would be funny to stick them on his head. He just looked at me, like that, all serious like, and then he started to move his eyebrows up and down so that the pants just sort of wiggled around on top of his head. God, it was stupid, but it made me crack up, so he kept doing it, and the fact that I was laughing so much at something so daft made him laugh too - and it went on for ages, just when I thought I couldn’t laugh anymore he wriggled his eyebrows and it started all over again. And after half an hour of this my ribs felt like they were cracking, and we were both light-headed and out of breath, so we lay close on our backs on his bed, him still with these ridiculous boxer shorts halfway down his forehead, and for once in my life I wasn’t worrying about a single thing.

That was when his dad, Bill, opened the door. He was calling Rick’s name impatiently, just as he came in the room - he was always shouting for Rick to come and do something with him, learn how to change a tire or practice shooting round the back - then, as he saw us, his expression changed: ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ he said to Rick, and he had this look of pure disgust on his face that properly scared me. Rick pulled the pants off his head so quickly the elastic twanged on his ear. A minute ago this would have made me laugh again, but now with Rick’s dad looking down on us like that there was nothing funny about it at all. I scrambled up off the bed, standing stuck in the middle of the bedroom, with my cheeks still red from all the laughing. I felt ashamed, like I’d been caught doing something awful - but I hadn’t, I knew we hadn’t - I looked to Rick for confirmation, but he was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the carpet, and wouldn’t look up at me. Bill had just come in from working outside, and he looked unnaturally large in that small room with all his gear on. ‘Time to fuck off now, Kieren Walker’, he said. He wasn’t looking at me either, and he was speaking with this kind of artificial calm, like he was just passing the time of day, that made it seem even more frightening. I didn’t know what to do. I ran down the stairs and Rick’s mum, Janet, was standing in the hall, looking up with her face pinched together in worry. She turned towards me as I shoved my trainers back on, as if she might say something, but as I stumbled towards the door Bill’s voice came from upstairs, shockingly loud, shouting at Rick: ‘DO YOU WANT TO BE IN THE GOOD BOOKS, OR THE BAD BOOKS?’. Rick’s mum pulled back like she’d been hit, and I got this sudden feeling like I’d just walked in on her getting dressed, or something, like this was something I was really not meant to be seeing. 

I was so angry at myself for not doing anything to help Rick, that I trailed my hands across the brambles and along the walls all the way home, until my knuckles were covered in little nicks and raised, white scratches. I couldn’t express it in words then, but as I walked home I desperately wanted to make an antidote to Bill Macy, with all his shame and rage and fear and fucked-up narrow view of the world. I remembered the moment just before he’d burst in on us, when we were lying on the bed breathless from laughing, and I knew that that was what I wanted to give to Rick - that moment, kept alive. 

It was the only thing I knew how to do, so I made him a mix-CD.


End file.
